For days, the lava wall held. Ron had landed his hit. No one else had managed so much as a flicker.
Kevin's power had stopped feeling theoretical.
Today was Defence Against the Dark Arts. First class with Moody.
"Alastor Moody. Former Auror. Known to disagree with the Ministry when the situation demands it." He stood at the front of the class and surveyed the room of fourth-years with his magical eye rolling slowly in its socket, assessing. "Your Defence professor this year."
His desk was cluttered with jars containing things that were better not looked at too closely. Bones, eyes, preserved creatures in murky liquid.
To be fair — and Kevin was willing to be fair, because he needed this man in place — fake Moody was the most effective Defence teacher they'd had in four years. Not because he was a brilliant educator. Because he filled the room like someone who had genuinely been in the dark and come back from it. Authority that came from experience, not titles.
"Dark magic," Moody said. "I believe in hands-on understanding. You can't fight what you won't face." He swept the class with his real eye, the magical one already fixed on Kevin. "Who can tell me? How many Unforgivable Curses are there?"
Kevin put his hand up.
"Mr. Kevin."
"As many as there are."
Silence. The class stared at him.
Moody's expression didn't move. "Mr. Kevin. Karkaroff had one thing right about you." He held his gaze for a moment. "The actual Unforgivable Curses."
He reached into one of his jars and produced something that resembled a spider without being one — a whip spider, long-legged and unsettling. A Growth Charm sent it skittering across his palm at twice its natural size.
"First. Imperius Curse. Imperio."
The creature went limp, then moved exactly as directed. Moody flicked his wand. It sailed directly at Kevin's face.
Kevin's hand shot up. He caught it mid-air.
He looked at it. Unpleasant. He handed it back to Moody.
Moody had paused — just briefly — at that. Then he brought it under control again, directing it to crawl slowly onto Kevin's desk.
"Second. Cruciatus Curse." He stepped closer. "Crucio."
His wand jabbed toward the spider on the desk.
The creature screamed. Its legs convulsed.
Hermione flinched and turned away, unable to watch.
Kevin reached over without thinking and put his hand between the spider and the wand tip.
Moody hadn't expected the boy to move. By the time he registered it, the spell had already landed.
The pain was instantaneous, total, and unlike anything Kevin had experienced. It went straight past the body — into something deeper, something the body didn't have a name for. His free hand clenched into a fist and drove through the desk.
Boom.
He gasped, cutting the contact. Moody pulled back.
"Kevin!" Hermione had spun around. She saw him bent over the wreckage of the desk, breathing hard, and her voice went razor-sharp. "How do you cast an Unforgivable Curse in a classroom?! Someone could have been seriously hurt! I am going to Dumbledore—"
Harry and Ron, watching from the front row, thought: she was perfectly quiet when it was the spider. But they'd both seen Kevin dive in front of it.
"I'm fine, Hermione." Kevin raised a hand. Nothing more.
She opened her mouth. He caught her hand. She closed it, still furious.
He flicked two fingers at the desk wreckage and repaired it without a wand, without an incantation. Not a single splinter out of place.
Half the class gasped.
"Sorry, Professor. I got ahead of myself. Please — go on with the third one."
Moody stared at the spot where the desk had been broken. Then at Kevin. Strong raw power. Physical toughness well above any fourth-year standard. Close to Harry Potter, involved enough to protect a target in the middle of a demonstration. This one could complicate things.
His magical eye narrowed. Then he moved on.
Kevin was processing quietly. Cruciatus hit something the mind couldn't fully shield against — it wasn't muscle pain, wasn't nerve pain, it was something else. His mental defences had held. He'd been able to act through it, just barely. But spellwork in that state would have been impossible. Precise movement — forget it.
Snape had been drilling Occlumency resistance with him for two years. It had helped. It had also shown him exactly where the gap was.
The Killing Curse was instant. The Imperius Curse could potentially be resisted through sheer will. Cruciatus — there was no resisting it, only enduring it. The lesson was: don't get hit.
Moody ignored Hermione's ongoing death-glare. "Last one. Killing Curse. Avada Kedavra."
Green light. The spider dropped and didn't move again.
Kevin's hand stayed in his lap. One touch while that light was active would be the end of that chapter.
Hermione stood up. "Killing Curse. In front of students. You are mad. You belong in Azkaban."
Moody didn't look away from the class. "Guilty as charged, Miss Granger."
"But trust me. You-Know-Who and his followers? Considerably worse. I'm teaching you to fight them, not to live comfortably ignorant of what's coming."
He turned back to the room — students shrunk in their seats, some of them genuinely pale. Exactly the reaction he was going for.
"What about you, Mr. Kevin?"
His magical eye found Kevin with that flat, assessing stare.
"I think I'm right..." Kevin began.
Moody waited.
"Hermione's right."
A beat.
"You're mad, Professor. Straight to Azkaban."
He rubbed Hermione's back lightly as he said it, and held Moody's gaze over her shoulder.
Moody snorted. "Ridiculous." He turned back to the board.
The rest of the lesson was solid — practical, focused, genuinely useful. Even Hermione, who had been prepared to file a formal complaint, couldn't find much to fault in the content. She remained irritated on principle, which was her prerogative.
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